Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking. Pauline Prescott

      

      Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking

      Pauline Prescott

      with Wendy Holden

      

      This book is dedicated to John, the memory of my parents, and for my three wonderful boys: Paul, Johnathan, and David; and for my beautiful granddaughter Ava Grace

      Smile, though your heart is aching

      

      Smile, even though it’s breaking

      When there are clouds in the sky

      

      You’ll get by

      

      If you smile

      

      Through your fear and sorrow

      

      Smile and maybe tomorrow

      

      You’ll see the sun come shining through

      

      For you

      

      Light up your face with gladness

      Hide every trace of sadness

      

      Although a tear may be ever so near

      That’s the time you must keep on trying

      

      Smile, what’s the use of crying

      

      You’ll find that life is still worthwhile

      

      If you just smile

      (John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons)

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Eleven

       Twelve

       Thirteen

       Fourteen

       Fifteen

       Sixteen

       Seventeen

       Eighteen

       Nineteen

       Twenty

       Twenty-One

       Twenty-Two

       Twenty-Three

       Twenty-Four

       Twenty-Five

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgments

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

      I LAY ON MY NARROW METAL-FRAMED BED, HANDS ACROSS MY TUMMY, AND felt the life inside me stir. Relishing the silence of the dawn, I knew that Sister Joan Augustine would burst into the dormitory any minute, clanging her bell to get us up and bathed for morning prayers.

      It was 25 December 1955. Enjoying a few more seconds’ peace, I allowed my mind to drift back to the fifteen Christmases I’d already known or at least those I could remember. Each year, my mum and dad would roll the carpet back and dance across the living room to the songs of Fats Waller or the Ink Spots playing on the gramophone. Under dangling paper chains Dad would waltz me laughingly around on his feet, clinging to the back of his legs until I was giddy.

      The best part was when my brother Peter and I were allowed to open the presents my parents had placed either side of the fireplace for us. Apart from the usual apple, orange and banana, there would always be some special gift they’d saved especially hard for – like my brother’s bicycle or the sleeping baby doll I’d coveted ever since I’d spotted it in Garner’s Toy Shop window. When the doll was replaced by another just before the school holidays, I cried all the way home. To my astonishment, there she was on Christmas morning, batting her long eyelashes at me. From Mum’s wages as a part-time cleaner and my father’s as a bricklayer a little money had been put into a savings club until there was enough.

      Now aged sixteen, I was about to give birth to my own baby doll, the one I prayed would bring back its airman father from wherever he’d returned to in America. I’d written and told him about our child but he hadn’t replied yet. Maybe once the baby was born, he’d divorce his wife and send for me to marry him as he’d always promised he would.

      I thought